A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial, With a new preface. [Paperback]

Peggy Reeves Sanday (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520210921 | ISBN-13: 978-0520210929 | Publication Date: October 15, 1997 | Edition: 1

In this bracing study of American sexual culture and the politics of acquaintance rape, esteemed anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday identifies the sexual stereotypes that continue to obstruct justice and diminish women. Beginning with a harrowing account of the St. John's rape case, Sanday reaches back through British and American landmark rape cases to explain how, with the exception of earliest Colonial times, rape has been a crime notable for placing the woman on trial. A ground-breaking work of scholarship, A Woman Scorned brings a broader perspective to our understanding of acquaintance rape and envisions, finally, a new paradigm for female sexual equality.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

According to University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday, half of all women who have been raped are victims of a crime committed by someone they knew. Her book charts America's attitudes towards sex and rape from the time of the Puritans (who Sanday says led spirited sex lives) when the incidence of rape was low; through the 18th century, when the number of rapes rose as masculinity came to be equated with sexual aggression and femininity with passivity; to the present, when male sexual violence is often condoned and juries would rather believe that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," than accept that a woman can be raped by an acquaintance. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Our responses to acquaintance rape, anthropology professor Sanday (Fraternity Gang Rape) proposes, are products of a complicated history of beliefs about human sexuality. Victorian standards helped foster the practice of using a rape complainant's past to undermine her character and credibility, while our culture's attraction to rugged masculinity often generates more sympathy for defendants in rape trials than for their accusers. Here Sanday traces the often contradictory beliefs about female sexuality and female autonomy that emerged from different eras of American history and discusses their impact on contemporary evaluations of accusations of acquaintance rape. Taking up recent controversial cases such as those of Mike Tyson and William Kennedy Smith, Sanday explores the various ideologies of gender and sexuality that made America's responses to these cases both heated and ambivalent. Her analysis of past and present attitudes toward acquaintance rape is insightful and persuasive.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 338 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520210921
• ISBN-13: 978-0520210929
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Abuse & Self Defense > Rape

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Change happens slowly..., April 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial, With a new preface. (Paperback)

Simply put, I was shocked by what I read in this book (being a person who firmly believes we live in a just society). I figure this "just" attribute is something left from childhood that is overly naïve and is something that needs to go out with the trash next week. Not knowing much concerning the issue of acquaintance rape apart from some exposure to the issue by hearing sad stories of abuse from college days, I figured I would read up on this issue. I am very glad I did as this book covers the history of rape, how the law has been against the female sex for over 300 years in dealing with rape, and how the majority of rapes are committed by people the person knows. I suggest this book for all people who need to move beyond the objectifying nature of women in society, and to create the space for much needed empathy for all people who have encountered sexual abuse within their lifetime.